{"id":2010,"date":"2004-09-21T17:43:29","date_gmt":"2004-09-21T21:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/magazine\/?page_id=2010"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:40:58","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:40:58","slug":"bobcat-in-the-henhouse","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/back-issues\/y2004\/fallwinter04\/features\/bobcat-in-the-henhouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Bobcat in the Henhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

A return to the nest hatches business success for Jesse Laflamme \u201900<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Doug Hubley, Photos by Phyllis Graber Jensen<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t possibly have it more intense,\u201d says Jesse Laflamme \u201900, who puts in 75-hour weeks as CFO of a firm that\u2019s moving tens of millions of units a year and riding an annual growth rate close to 30 percent. \u201cI\u2019d go crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But at least Laflamme can ease the stress in a way that would have been unavailable to him if he\u2019d gone into high finance, which he considered while at Bates. \u201cAt the end of the day,\u201d he explains, \u201cI walk in with our chickens and see if everybody\u2019s doing all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody\u201d might be exaggerating, since Pete and Gerry\u2019s Organic Eggs keeps roughly 120,000 laying hens on the family farm in the White Mountain village of Monroe, N.H. But Laflamme\u2019s visits with the \u201cgirls,\u201d as he calls them, are one sign of an approach to farming that\u2019s working well for the Laflamme family. By embracing humane treatment and organic feed for the chickens, the family has plucked commercial victory from the beak of defeat.<\/p>\n

Once a traditional commodity-egg producer with prospects so bleak that Laflamme\u2019s parents urged him to look elsewhere for a career, Pete and Gerry\u2019s now enjoys the largest market share for organic eggs in the Northeast. In volume the brand ranks second in the nation behind Horizon Organic Eggs \u2014 even though Horizon is nationally distributed and Pete and Gerry\u2019s concentrates on the Northeast.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecialty eggs,\u201d the industry category that includes organic, cage-free, etc., account for only about 5 percent of U.S. egg consumption. But growth has increased right along with consumer interest in natural foods, despite the higher retail costs (Pete and Gerry\u2019s eggs in the Boston area run about $4 a dozen, compared with $1.60 for the house brand). \u201cBeing in agriculture, we know more than the common consumer does about where food comes from,\u201d says Laflamme. \u201cThat true knowledge is all it takes for somebody to believe in organic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certified humane by the Virginia-based organization Humane Farm Animal Care, Pete and Gerry\u2019s eggs are laid by contented chickens. Uncaged, they move around and socialize in airy barns and are allotted about 1.2 square feet per bird \u2014 nearly three times the factory-farming standard, Laflamme says. State and federally certified, the \u201corganic\u201d in the brand name means that the hens\u2019 dinner includes no pesticides or other additives. The menu does include flaxseed and linseed, which give the eggs up to five times as much Omega 3 fatty acid, touted for its benefits to human health, as conventional eggs.<\/p>\n

Jesse\u2019s father, Gerry Laflamme, took over management of the farm from his father-in-law in the late 1970s, and today he runs the production side while cousin Pete Stanton handles distribution. Until the late 1990s, it was a conventional operation. But, Jesse explains, \u201cit was a small farm and we didn\u2019t make that leap to being a mega-industrial farm like the rest of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though small, the operation is hardly mom and pop. The birds are fed and watered mechanically, the laying barns are cleaned likewise, and lighting and climate are automatically maintained so as to encourage the hens to lay. The hens\u2019 well-being is not only an end in itself but, this being a business after all, a factor in the production of more and better eggs.<\/p>\n

These roll down from the nests onto conveyors, totaling about 1.5 miles, that carry them to the processing shed. Here they encounter a giant apparatus in which exquisite mechanisms wash, grade, sort, and size the eggs. The only ongoing human participation is that of an inspector who, hovering over the high-tech equivalent of yesterday\u2019s egg candle, watches for cracks and flaws.<\/p>\n

Pete and Gerry\u2019s eggs reach the market as much as two weeks fresher than even their organic competitors, Laflamme says. The firm combines production, processing, and distribution at one location, enabling daily shipments rather than long warehouse layovers.<\/p>\n

With a staff of only 20, annual production is somewhere between 36 and 42 million eggs. \u201cMost conventional farms will put that out in less than a week,\u201d says Laflamme.<\/p>\n

Laflamme has worked at the farm all his life, but during his Bates years felt himself pulled in quite a different direction \u2014 high finance. A political science major with a secondary concentration in economics, \u201cI would have headed probably to New York or Boston to do something in the financial world,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Instead, he headed home, donning the CFO hat the day after he graduated. \u201cOur organic brand began to build when I was at Bates,\u201d he says. \u201cI began to see the promise when I was traveling around New England to visit stores and meet customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Bates figured in his decision. The political science faculty, especially Professor James Richter, heightened his sense of obligation to the greater good. \u201cI was open-minded to it, but they certainly led the way in my being able to see that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A four-year rower at Bates, Laflamme was influenced also by an assistant crew coach \u2014 in fact, he married her. And Sandra DuBarry, Colby \u201999, was crucial to his decision to return to the farm, sharing both his love for Monroe\u2019s natural setting and his belief in the potential for the revamped Pete and Gerry\u2019s brand.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe really encouraged me to give it a shot,\u201d Laflamme says. \u201cShe saw a real future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple keep their oars in, taking their shells out on the nearby Connecticut River in Jesse\u2019s rare free time. In fact, Laflamme credits crew at Bates with beefing up his resolve in ways that have stood him in good stead since, as he puts it, \u201cI landed in the hot seat\u201d at the farm. Returning to the roost right as Pete and Gerry\u2019s Organics started to take off, Laflamme has run the numbers, handled marketing and buyer pitches, and had a hand in just about everything else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m having a blast,\u201d he says. In part, no doubt, because there\u2019s always the clucking comfort of a visit with the girls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A return to the nest hatches business success for Jesse Laflamme \u201900…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":2005,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-2010","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2010"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13668,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2010\/revisions\/13668"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}